Vanishing Acts Read Online Free PDF

next year.”
    Madison got up and brushed the grass off her legs. Club soccer! No way. She started to walk away. Then she remembered Ann. She ran over to the coach.
    â€œExcuse me, Coach Davis? Is this the only time that people can try out? Like, if a girl missed it? Do they have a chance of making the team?”
    â€œThis is the only tryout, honey. The club teams take players all year. But serious players should have shown up today.”
    This wasn’t good, Madison thought as she walked to the locker room. Ann couldn’t play club soccer! She and Madison had been on the same team forever. They had to be teammates!

Chapter 5
The Shelby Case
    W alking to her father’s law office after practice, Madison imagined terrible things happening to Marci. Maybe she would be kicked off the team or break her leg. Yeah, that would be best. She would break her leg and have to sit on the bench and watch Madison score the winning goal in the championship game. Then Madison shook the thought away, feeling guilty. No leg-breaking. But someday Madison would show everyone how she could play.
    Portland is a small city. The tallest buildings are no more than thirty stories high, and there are very few of those; and the city blocks are short. Kincaid and Kirk, her father’s law firm, was in the heart of downtown. Madison covered the ten blocks from The Grove to her father’s office quickly, not stopping to look at the shops along the way.
    The law firm’s waiting room was decorated with oil paintings of French country scenes. Two comfortable armchairs flanked a burgundy leather couch, and magazines were stacked on end tables between the chairs and the couch. Walking to the dark-wood receptionist’s desk, Madison saw Peggy Welles finish a phone call. Peggy was seventy years old and gray haired and had been working as Hamilton Kincaid’s receptionist since long before Madison was born. She was the closest thing Madison had to a grandmother. When Madison was younger, it wasn’t unusual for Peggy to pick her up at school and take her to soccer practice or the law office, since Hamilton was frequently in court, at the jail, or knee deep in work at two-thirty in the afternoon.
    â€œIs this Madison Kincaid, the junior high school student?” Peggy asked with a wide smile. “How was your first day?”
    â€œOkay.”
    Peggy took a gander at Madison’s black eye and bruises, but she didn’t freak out because she knew they were run-of-the-mill injuries for athletes.
    â€œI take it you had soccer tryouts after school.”
    Madison nodded.
    â€œI’m going to go get you some ice.”
    Peggy returned two minutes later and handed Madison a Baggie of ice and a towel.
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œThink you made the team?”
    â€œI hope so. I’ll find out tomorrow.”
    â€œAre you worried?”
    â€œNot about soccer. I’ve had bigger things on my mind. I’m worried something might have happened to Ann. She might even have been kidnapped.”
    â€œOh, really?” Peggy said, fighting hard to keep from smiling. This was not the first time Madison had decided that one of her friends had met a horrible fate.
    â€œI haven’t heard from her since she left for Europe, I didn’t see her in school today, and she wasn’t at soccer tryouts. She hasn’t missed tryouts, practice, or a game since we were five!”
    â€œHave you tried calling her?” Peggy asked.
    â€œI’ve left tons of messages on her cell. And her Facebook page is way out of date. Becca, Jessi, and Lacey haven’t heard from her either. Something awful must have happened. I’m sure she got some strange European illness and is in a hospital in Lithuania or she was kidnapped by—”
    â€œI’m sure she wasn’t kidnapped,” Peggy said reassuringly. “There’s probably a simple explanation for why she missed school.”
    Peggy was echoing